I Don't Need Your Rocking Chair
by FourSilverArrows
Summary: John Sheppard finds some gray hair. John's POV. No acutal song lyrics are used in the body of this story. Warning for language.


I Don't Need Your Rocking Chair

Warnings: Language

Now Beta Approved: J.A.B.

A/N: Not a songfic and no actual lyrics are used in the body of the story, but it was inspired by the song I Don't Need Your Rocking Chair by George Jones. 'Cause that's the first thing that popped into my mind when I found my gray hair yesterday.

Heidi's Challenge: In honor of the ongoing conversation about grey hair, I am challenging Goo and anybody else to write a fic that I already know she has a  
plot for about Sheppard, or anyone, but for Goo it has to be Sheppard  
finding a grey hair! Consider the gauntlet thrown!

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At first, I hadn't really noticed it on my own, but someone had. And that someone is taking unholy delight in reminding me every damn day.

Hello, my name is John Sheppard, and I have gray hair.

Well, okay, just four or five gray hairs, but under the bright lights of Atlantis they seem to fluoresce—like the freakin' sun.

I admit . . . it kind of threw me when I first saw them in the mirror. Hell, I'm not that old. Am I?

Anyway, it doesn't matter. Nope.

Jack O'Neill is almost completely gray and it doesn't slow him down a bit. Hell, lots of guys look good with gray hair.

It makes them look distinguished and smart.

And I didn't dump that line of thinking until I went to my office one morning and found an old oak rocking chair in the place of my regular desk chair. It had a nice gigantic gray bow tied around it with a certificate that read, 'John Sheppard -- Over The Hill.'

I can take a joke. I can handle a gag gift.

It's not my fault that my office window accidentally was left open and the chair just accidentally ended up in the ocean.

And, no, I didn't abuse my authority as the military commander of the base when I posted a guard at my door to make sure no more sidesplitting gags ended up in my office.

The next morning, when the advertisements for Gerital and Centrium Silver popped up on my computer, it was a complete coincidence that the monitor died.

If there're any cracks in the monitor housing, it's just because I had a difficult time getting it to the tech people so they could look at it.

I'm beginning to have my suspicions about who's behind this campaign of humiliation.

His name is McKay and he's gonna die when I shove that PowerBar down his throat.

Yeah, that's right. He's sitting over there in the mess with Teyla and Ronon giggling his little pea brain right out of his head while running a hand over his receding hairline.

So what if I made a few cracks about his hair? In the long distant past, before we were best friends and all.

Best friends don't do crap like this to their pathetic and graying old friends.

Hey, I didn't start putting ads for hair plugs in his backpack or leave a hairpiece on his bed with a 'Don't Feed the Animals' sign.

Look at him. Giggling over there like a ten year old and shifting his beady little eyes at me.

Dammit.

Oh, hell, now Ronon and Teyla are looking at me.

Teyla has that amused look that she gets sometimes. She's not actually smiling, but I can tell she really, really wants to.

It's Ronon's leer that prompts me to leave the mess before I stop reminding myself that I'm basically a lazy person so I don't go over there and kick some ass.

I don't care that Teyla puts me on the floor during our sessions or that Ronon is freakin' huge.

Then it happened . . .

Elizabeth calls me into her office and gives me a manila envelope.

Okay, I'm not used to getting manila envelopes, so I'll bite. And it does have Stargate Command's super secret return address code.

What harm could it do? It's just a damn envelope.

However, that was before I started living a suspicious lifestyle due to four or five silver hairs on the top of my head and trying like hell not to eradicate my snickering team.

I open the damn thing and out plops an application for Medicare.

I'm not kidding—a freakin' application form for freakin' Medicare.

I know I'm spluttering, because Elizabeth has backed up with her hands held up to ward off my airborne spit.

And she's laughing.

I have to remind myself—again—that I'm still lazy and it wouldn't do my career any good to assault the civilian leader of Atlantis.

I stomp away after shoving the damn forms into her garbage can. Felt like shoving it down her pig-snorting throat.

She's lucky I didn't light the damn things on fire in the middle of the gateroom.

I deem the only safe place to be is my office since I posted a guard after the rocking chair episode.

I will not . . . talk . . . to my so-called friends until I have calmed down a bit.

Hell, I can feel my fingers curling inward with the need to choke someone.

Reports will be a good distraction. Yeap, I'm going to intentionally, and on time, do my reports.

That's when I notice a foreign object on my desk.

I'm about to bawl out my guard and then accidentally open my window again, when I notice the name O'Neill on a small tag on the top of the long box.

Okay.

I carefully open the damn thing and there's a note and a bottle of champagne.

The good stuff.

The only thing the note says is, 'You'd best celebrate now, because more is on the way. If the Wraith don't give you gray hair then your team sure as hell will.'

Son of a bitch.

Who the hell squealed on me?

I'm going to find out tonight.

Right after I try my best to drink this whole bottle of champagne by myself and try to pluck the damn gray hairs out by the roots.

END


End file.
